The Institute for the Future looks like the kind of place that ordinary academics can only dream of hanging out at. And they have a blog, called Future Now. One of their Research Directors, Alex Pang has posted an essay called Sheriffs of Norrath where he asks about the laws of virtual worlds. He even references us. Lordy.
"...there are currently three big legal issues being raised by these massive games: How do you enforce real-world laws against theft or fraud when they apply to digital goods? How do you create legal systems that operate in these online worlds? and finally, Who really owns this property?"
I'm particularly interested in others' thoughts on these issues, especially issue two. How do you create legal systems that operate in these worlds? Or perhaps the logically prior question, do we need to create these legal systems at all?
